Parisians to vote on scooters, CES roundup, Tesla troubles and happy 160 B’day Tube!

Paris & ??

Paris to hold referendum on e-scooter rental services. Rumours had it that the city intends to ban scooters (and there are 15,000 of those in Paris), and now we find that power belongs to the people! The vote is scheduled for April 2nd (a Sunday). Expect a massive media campaign from micromobility operators Lime (Uber), Dott and Tier, resembling the AB5 in California, as this decision will influence many other cities. A TechCrunch long read on the history of Paris and scooters.?

CES - Consumer Electronics Show ??????

Curious about what went on at CES? Reads by TechCrunch, Lukas Neckermann, Wired and Micromobility. Main themes were passenger experience & car cabin tech, autonomous vehicles, electric vehicles, micromobility and, of course, concept cars. Personally, I had (only) 1.5 hours to walk the automotive floor, and can sum it by saying that the future (and CES focus) is on autonomy, and that we better be patient for another few years until that future arrives.?

Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT? ????

Tanzania relaxes ride-hailing regulation, allowing ride-hailing players such as Uber and Bolt to charge up to 25% commission + 3% booking fee. This is after the government mandated a 15% commission and removed booking fees, down for the market rate of 33% commission + booking fees, and seeing Uber leave the market and Bolt offering only corporate client trips.?

Via promotes Ahmed Hafez, its Middle-East Regional Director, to manage school transportation in NYC. Back in 2019 Via was selected to ‘power’ NYC District 26 school system, but the pandemic slowed the modernisation plans. This year the city plans to roll-out the solution to all schools in the district. Schools are a very big market (US and beyond), and have so far not been a classic DRT use case. Now Via, and Hafez, will need to prove DRT works in school runs.??

Barcelona taxi vs. ride-hailing. The local professional association gave the government 10 days to change regulation, or expect the shut down of taxi service. Taxis are furious about unauthorised gig drivers running services and Free Now’s attempts to install dynamic pricing and squeeze out fixed regulated rates.?

Zeelo helps people get to work, enabling better recruitment and retention for businesses. A recent survey by the company found that 70% of users were able to accept job offers that were once only accessible by car ownership.?

Uber to take over Prague airport taxi contract, winning the contract out of existing taxi providers. The Routing Company launches a three year DRT service in Hauge. Stellantis’ Free2move expands car-sharing and subscriptions in the U.S. Didi is allowed back to the Chinese app store, after being banned for 2 years. Meanwhile, Didi goes into another layoff round, cutting hundreds of jobs. Renault’s Mobilize and Cabify partner, allowing Cabify’s drivers access to Mobilize Limo, Mobilize’s ride-hailing & taxi drivers vehicle package. Cabify plans to IPO in 12-15 months, at a €2bn valuation. Finland keeps Yango moving.

Delivery ????

DoorDash now returns packages, offering pre-paid packages delivery to the nearest UPS, FedEx or USPS location. Piloted back in March 2022, the service is now rolled-out in the US. This isn’t the first time a service such as this has been tried; Back in 2015 Uber and a startup called Shyp tried to commercialise in the past, but quit by 2018. Post-pandemic, as an add-on service to a wider delivery solution, this could be right.?

Faction starts driverless deliveries in San Francisco. The vehicle combines autonomy (+ safety driverS) with human teleoperations.?

Oda, Norwegian grocery delivery, raises $151M at a $353M valuation (down from a once $900M). The company is profitable in Norway, and seeks profitability in its Finland and German markets. Egypt’s Appetito merges with Saudi Jumlaty to form groceries app NOMU Group. GoTo acquires Indonesian logistics firm Swift Logistics for $38m, strengthening the company’s delivery arm. LINE MAN Wongnai (Thailand) in talks to acquire local Delivery Hero / foodpanda operations. Instacart lowers its valuation yet again (4th time), to $10bn, down for a once $39bn valuation, South Korea’s Kurly scraps IPO plans.

Western Europe: from 11 rapid-delivery players in Summer of 2021 to 4 main players only: Getir, Flink, GoPuff and Zapp. A story about Getir.?

Autonomous ??

Mobileye’s CEO said at CES that: “Our business model is based on partnering with autonomous driving platforms and current transport operators” and that he believes in private autonomous cars, as the ride-hailing model is not healthy.?

Holon, by Bentler, launched an autonomous shuttle, partnering with Mobileye and Beep. What's interesting here is the partnership - Holon builds the shuttle; Mobileye supplies the self-driving system, called ‘Drive’; and Beep (backed by Intel investment) is the ‘producer’, or the operator. This triangle of partnership - shuttle builder, self-driving tech solution and operation expertise - will dominate the industry.?

ZF partnered with Beep, aiming to launch ‘thousands’ (why not millions?) of shuttles in the US. Mobileye starts a pilot project in Germany with NIO. Bluebus, a E-bus manufacturer, successfully tested an autonomous Navya powered bus. Beti, a French transport operator, buys a Navya shuttle.?

Watch a video of a Cruise vehicle in Austin driving over a bike lane. This makes me feel we’re closer to cracking autonomy, as these vehicles are getting more and more like humans ??.

Oxbotica raises $140M. Oxbotica develops a B2B autonomous solution, and this brings her total funding to $225M. Volvo completes purchase of autonomous driving firm Zenseact, ADAS AI.?

Dmitri Dolgov, Co-CEO of Waymo, writes of AVs. Some bottom lines: “In the coming year and beyond, we will see the industry enter a new phase as fully-autonomous ride-hailing services expand rapidly to new markets“ and “Trucking will also see progress… AV companies will sign more partnerships with carriers, freight brokers, and major consumer brands”.?

A McKinsey long read report on the private-passenger-car segment of the AD market.?

Flying cars ??

Flying cars pricing: Vertical Aerospace targeting $1 per seat mile; Lilium $2.25; Joby $3, and in par with Uber Black going forward; Archer $3.30; Jaunt Air Mobility targets UberX prices. Take these prices into the commute use case and add WFH, and you might have a different real-estate future, with rural environments being increasingly attractive.?

MIT research finds that commuting distances are standard regardless of city size; the average commuting distance remains similar across cities, at approximately 5 miles / 8 km.?

Stellantis will mass-produce Archer’s electric air taxi. The deal also sees Stellantis investing equity money in the sum of $150M, with the OEM increasing its board membership.?

An FT long read on the challenges of flying cars through the eyes of Lilium. Over $7bn have been invested in the industry, which now sees investors shun risk, with battery dependance and regulation scrutiny slowing the advancements. Still, a market exists, with airlines buying future vehicles and pilots beginning in 2024.?

United States and South Korea aviation administrations to partner on eVTOL development. SK Telecom (Korea) discusses UAM service commercialisation with Joby Aviation (US). ?

Over 750 eVTOLs have been registered to date, 120 of these registered in 2022!

Tesla ????

Tesla cuts prices globally by up to 20 percent after missing Wall Street estimates for 2022. The move is intended to increase demand / growth in a tougher economic market. This is also an early answer to OEMs’ increased focus on electric vehicles which is expected to greatly increase the competition within the EV space. Tesla owners are not happy. Recent buyers are angry for paying more, and the move has shaken up the Tesla 2nd hand market. In China, protests were launched outside Tesla retail centres.?

Tesla plans to remove a Full Self-Driving Beta driver monitoring feature, regulators are concerned. The NHTSA keeps working ‘really fast’ in its Autopilot investigation it opened in… August 2021. NHTSA is reviewing whether Tesla vehicles adequately ensure drivers are paying attention. Video of a Tesla crash from Nov, 2022. New California law bans Tesla from advertising as Fully Self-Driving.?

A Verge long read (before the price cuts) - “The vibes are off at Tesla” - Layoffs, lawsuits, delays, Twitter chaos, stock in free fall (from ±$300 in September to ±$110 end of December 2022), factory shutdowns, what? is going on with Tesla? And a Slate long read of the challenges of Tesla.?

Also, Tesla is planning a $770 million expansion of its Texas Gigafactory.?

In other news ??

Dara, Uber’s CEO, travels to Ukraine, with a $3M check to buy ambulances. Uber has been active in providing free services to Ukraine ever since the Russian invasion.

Stellantis launches a new business unit dedicated to generating revenue from the group’s connected vehicle data.?

Data from lifts (elevators) shows how different cities are getting back from WFH in offices and hotels. Amsterdam leads in office lifts with London closing the list, Munich in hotels with… London and Milan closing the list.?

“Electric Vehicles are bringing out the worst in us”. A long read by David Zipper on America lust for SUVs and its adverse effect it has on (mostly non-clean) electricity output and transport safety. The bigger they are, the more deadly and energy consuming they are.?

I’ve always said that I think the Tesla / Boring Loop project is greatly disappointing, and now Lucas has stated the same.?

London Underground celebrates 160th anniversary. There are >5 million rides a day on the Tube. Mazal Tov!